The Hook and Loop fastener by LessEMF is similar to Velcro™. However, it is conductive and one inch wide. Use it to create re-sealable flaps, tubes, and seams in shielding fabrics, plastics and foils. Will conduct along its length and across the gap. Silver coated. Can be sewn in or glued, no adhesive supplied.
Fabrican is a new spray-on fabric that comes in a can, by Dr. Manel Torres. It is composed of pressurized liquid cotton fibers that when come in contact with your body instantaneously solidify into a garment. The piece of clothing shapes to your body and it can be easily peeled off when you need to undress. In addition, the technology enables the insertion of other elements that can be delivered in a diffused form, such as perfume.
Arik Levy, a Paris-based industrial designer, believes that changing the "genetic code" essentially creates a new material. He plays around the idea of giving materials "another kind of life" by trying to use materials out of their usual context.
"I work like a researcher in a lab, searching for the genetic codes of materials or companies. Once I've decoded them, I inject my own gene in different places." Arik Levy
Via Core77
Industrial hemp is an incredible resource. Hemp is harvested for its fibers for hemp clothing and seeds for hemp oil. With a relatively short growth cycle of 100-120 days, it is an efficient and economical crop for farmers to grow, however, industrial hemp cannot be commercially grown in the United States because it is erroneously confounded with marijuana. In fact, industrial hemp and marijuana are different breeds of Cannabis sativa.
The most commonly seen modern hemp product is clothing. Hemp clothing is warmer, softer, more absorbent, extremely breathable and significantly longer lasting than clothing made from cotton. It is nice to have clothing that looks like linen, feels like flannel, and wears two to three times longer than other fabrics, but this is just the beginning.
Via www.hemp.com
Plastic Logic is developing licensable manufacturing solutions for printing thin and flexible active-matrix displays. When combined with an electronic-paper imaging film, Plastic Logic's backplane technology enables highly portable, readable and power efficient displays. The initial application focus is e-readers (e.g. e-books, e-dictionaries, e-maps, e-newspapers). These displays will often be wirelessly connected to WAN devices such mobile phones and PDAs, allowing users to access content 'on-the-move' more comfortably and efficiently than is possible using a small integrated display.
This is the first step towards flexible and plastic backplanes for a range of display applications and frontplane technologies including LCD and OLED. Features include resolution up to 150ppi (pixels per inch); scaleable area to A4 (210mm by 297mm) and above; 4 levels of grayscale; high aperture ratio / fill factor; and bistable e-paper which enables high contrast reflective display (sun-light readable) and ultra-low power consumption.
via Transmaterial by Blaine Brownell
Soft Bamboo fiber is softer than the softest cotton, has a natural sheen to the surface and feels similar to silk or cashmere. Protective Bamboo fiber clothing is naturally anti-microbial and requires no harmful chemicals. Bamboo apparel is comfortable, thermal regulating and will keep you cooler, drier, warmer and odor free. Natural Bamboo is one of the world's most prolific and fastest-growing plants, and is able to reach maturity in about four years, compared to the typical 25 to 70 years for commercial tree species in the U.S. It is grown without pesticides or chemicals, is 100% biodegradeable, and is naturally regenerative.
Via Shirts of Bamboo
Kapok fiber is a silky cotton-like substance that surrounds the seeds in the pods of the ceiba tree. The ceiba tree belongs to the Bombacacae family and is primarily found in Asia in tropical and semi-tropical climates at an altitude less than 1000 feet, in porous volcanic soil. The silky kapok fiber, or floss, is a tiny cellulose tube with air sealed inside and it is ideal for stuffing life preservers and other water-safety equipment because of its excellent buoyancy. It can support as much as 30 times its own weight in water and loses only 10 percent of buoyancy over a 30-day period. It is eight times lighter than cotton and, thanks to its vacuum fibers, extremely thermal-insulator. Kapok fiber is also lightweight, non-allergic, non-toxic, resistant to rot and odorless. Unfortunately, due the fact that it is inelasic and too fragile, it can't be spun but its outstandig characteristics of lightness, impermeability, thermal-isolation and eco-naturality are used as stuffing in some garments of Corpo Nove's fashion line. Moreover there's yet another plusvalence involving the use of kapok fibers: since the ceiba trees grow only naturally and there aren't coltivations of this plant, the use of the kapok silk stimulates the safeguard of these secular plants which are ecologic patrimony of our planet.
Via Grado Zero Espace
The first fabric made from spider webs. Its looks are very similar to silk; it is elastic like nylon and thirty times more resistant than Kevlar.
For many years researchers in the field of textiles have tried to combine the DNA of a very rare species of spiders, the Nephile Clavipes, with other organism, in order to obtain an organic material with the characteristics of spider webs: lightness, elasticity, and resistance. Until today results have not been very significant.
The alternative solution that was found is that of working directly on the spider webs. Though, technologically speaking, it is not as simple as it appears.
Corpo Nove, in partnership with University of California and Grado Zero Espace, has created the first fabric in the world made from the mechanical weaving of spider webs, utilizing the most advanced technologies in the field of textiles.
In the last century spider webs were found in the Solomon Islands to weave bags and fishing nets. The technique that was used then was completely manual. The process that has been brought by Corpo Nove is instead totally mechanical.
As an experiment by Dr. Cheryl Hayashi, spiders from the Nephila Clavipes species were purposely brought up in laboratories, producing their exceptional and precious web. And it was from this testing that researches were able to further develop and experiment the weaving technologies.
This fiber is a revolutionary step. It is a natural fiber, just like wool and silk, but its technical performance overpass any technical material that can be found on the market today.
Via Corpo Nove, Grado Zero Espace
Cigarettes are not always bad. A new leather concept with a revolutionary dimension of use for the production of jackets was invented in Italy. Grado Zero Espace and Corpo Nove are two Italian Industries developed a new material composed of three different components. Cigarette paper, an extremely fragile but at the same time exceptionally light material, was combined with leather. As a result these two materials created a new leather that is incredibly thin and soft, but extremely resistant. Adding a membrane of polymers that carry a formal memory produces an unusual waterproof layer. Adding this membrane generates a feedback control system that is able to determine body temperature, controlling it, and hence permitting a maximized transpiration of the material. This is a new frontier for the use of leather in sportswear, as well as the reusability of cigarette paper in a world where it is known that smoking is bad.
via Grado Zero Espace, Italy
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